


Reboot

by onewithroses



Category: Batman - All Media Types
Genre: Epilepsy, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Seizures
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-25
Updated: 2012-08-25
Packaged: 2017-11-12 20:16:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/495245
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/onewithroses/pseuds/onewithroses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dick has seizures but hasn’t told anyone. Based on <a href="http://batfamilyheadcanons.tumblr.com/post/30118778393/566-dick-develops-epilepsy-as-a-result-of-the-brain">this head cannon</a>. Minor appearances by Bruce, Damian, and Tim.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Reboot

The medication works.  
  
Mostly.  
  
Instead of full body shake downs and glitchy memories he's left with absent moments--where instead of his body betraying him whole heartedly his mind checks out. He stares rather than falls, he blinks back into awareness typically in the same place he left it rather than somewhere else completely (more often than not a couch or a hospital gurney--and wasn't that difficult to leave more than once without anyone calling home). It's still dangerous; it's not perfect.  
  
But its better than it could be and its easy enough to explain when someone catches his mind restarting like one of Oracle's computers. Laugh it off, wave it off, bluster about thinking about a case or remembering something that happened months ago, years ago. Teasing works, smiles work--it eases the lines of worry.  
  
And Dick knows better than most that his whole family has enough to worry about.  
  
  
  
He's at the cave after a week of nearly sleepless nights. Called in last minute for assistance after a bender of a month and he should know better--medicine is not magic. It does not fix the world and it certainly can't fix his head. Dick knows this.  
  
He goes anyway--confident in the way only he can be that everything will be fine. Fine. Nothing will happen--and if it does it'll be manageable.  
  
After all, he's never had a absent seizure that effected his work before. He's never had one on his bike. While swinging across a building.  
  
He's only ever had one or two while fighting--and they were short, blessedly short, and manageable.  
  
So Dick knows it shouldn't be a problem. He took his medication. He's managed this before--right here, in fact, with just as much stress.  
  
His head aches right above his right eye and he's standing in front of a computer when the lines on the screen switch to gibberish. Symbols and signs and random letters. On some level he thinks, _This is not good._  
  
But the thought, the feeling, is distant like the computer screen and Tim's voice in the background. Red Robbin. That's what he was now.  
  
Dick let go of the chair he was holding onto and turned--to do what? He wasn't entirely sure except he had to do _something_ and there was work to do and his head hurt. Dick thinks he might be saying something but it's like his lips are numb and his mind is divorcing from his body.  
  
Bruce is grabbing his shoulder.  
  
He should be scared.  
  
  
  
Dick wakes up on a gurney in the cave with an a IV in his arm and an aching body. At first he thinks it is work related but the only blood he finds is on his bitten tongue.  
  
It was a scarce hope anyway: he knows this feeling. Its distinct the way a tonic-clonic seizure makes him feel--like his mind is rebooting and defragmenting. He always feels like he woke up in the middle of his own mind carefully reorganizing all the information for him. It makes him feel like he's grasping at straws that slip through his fingers.  
  
In the doorway Damian and Tim are looking in on him--not fighting but that almost makes it worse. Bruce will be along soon, he knows.  
  
Dick takes a breath, holds it, and lets it go.


End file.
